Despite being named Noel, besides a one-off joke, he doesn't feature particularly heavily in this episode. Although the joke of him going to France a few times was pretty good.

Which is sort of what this episode is? It's a break between the heavy drama for some light hearted holiday stuff, and it stars Sakuya and it's all pretty good. The only downside is that the serious characters Kei and Tsukasa are busy doing actual investigative work in the background, so they're absence is felt.

That said, I have mixed feelings about Kei being the one to discover the Phantom Thieves' identities. That really should have been a Tsukasa win, as the smartest one in the group. However, as the secondary antagonist, it makes sense for Kei to discover it, since he'll stir up the most drama from it.

The raw's a little different this week. Our audio got borked from our usual raw, so we captured a stream from the Toei Fan Club stream instead.

I gotta say, this is my favorite kind of sentai episode. There's lots going on, a slightly farce-y story, and the character interactions really make the episode great. Just all around lots of fun with whoops, a bit of very important plot thrown in. Oh, and they dusted off that Christmas tree and those costumes that have been used since at least Magiranger.

I love Kairi just chewing on that piece of salmon while Sakuya's busting his ass fighting the Ganglar.

Gotta mention, the writer for this episode also did 26, 27, 31, 32 and 40, aka black market auction, yes man dancing, surrendering ganglar, challenge to a duel and endless worrying. All really good balances of humor and plot and this man is probably my favorite sentai writer as of now.

To make everyone’s Christmas a positive one, especially after what the Patrangers went through last episode, Sakuya’s requesting Jurer to cook a Christmas banquet for the kids from Episode 14-15. Meanwhile, Keiichirou has pulled up that missing persons case to investigate Zamigo’s weird hobby (Raimon called him a weirdo).

I like the MOTW's premise because I eat salmon once a week.

And Keiichirou got a Wham.

The Collection Piece of the Week is GaoSilver’s G-Brace Phone.

Funny episode. I wanna cook the salmon fried rice one day. The next episode or two should be intense.

As of 3/17/19, Steve Wozniak is traveling to Japan. Hoping he catches wind of his nickname being used as name for two Kamen Rider characters.

Lots of fun holiday episode. It reminded me a lot of the last time Sakuya and Noel featured together, in Episode 22 with that monster turning people into fish. Somehow these two make a rather quirky and charming pair. I laughed when X just casually takes his train to France, and I actually laughed harder the second time.

Actually I found a lot of the episode just really fun and great. So enchanted was I, that I barely raised an eyebrow at the kookiness of the mecha fight. (Fingers still crossed that we'll get to see Keichiro use Siren Striker's Super Mode before the series ends.)

What's also great is that the cops might just be finally onto the thieves. The show is so close to being over that they can't possibly double back on this, right? Right? Obviously the preview for next week implies the Patrangers are mostly going to discuss the matter and probably save the actual confrontation until the episode afterwards, but I'm confident there's going to some juicy drama in store.

It's the little details that make the show. Touma calling Sayaka "senpai". Sayaka transforming with his mouth full. Kairi totally not caring that Sayaka was fighting a Ganglar because he was eating some good salmon. Umika continuing her Sayaka abuse by casually throwing him around when the cake is revealed. Umika slamming the suitcase shut on Kairi's hand for teasing her. The lupins stealing a collection piece without even transforming. Gauche actually doing something clever so that we don't have to suspend our disbelief on why the Pat/Lups don't bust a cap in her butt while she is monster growing. Kairi with the oh so foreshadowing remark "Kei-chan sure is late." to close the episode.

Thank you writer!

I guess I shouldn't complain that a competent fictional police officer should have made the connection earlier, but then they wouldn't have had 45 episodes so far.

Like many anime fans I of course have heard about how KFC became Christmas food in Japan, but I honestly never heard before that people prepare chicken on their own in Japan for Christmas rather than buying it as fast food. (Especially roast rather than fried. All they need is for someone to say "hey, it's supposed to be turkey" since they're almost there already.)

All they need is for someone to say "hey, it's supposed to be turkey" since they're almost there already.)

Main problem is turkey isn't native to Japan so it's expensive to import. One of those Butterballs will set you back like 60+ dollars and they only sell them at Costco. Subway's got turkey sandwiches but besides that it's impossible to find in regular grocery stores in any form. Maybe if someone set up some turkey farms and made it so turkey was more affordable? But at this point Christmas = chicken thanks to some very savvy marketing from KFC.

It looks like he took two trips in 12 hours. We can assume his first trip was at about 9am. Assuming the kid told Sakuya at the start of the day. Its. 9844km from Japan to France. It normally takes 12 hours to fly. He probably ordered the cake on the way there, like he ordered the chicken. So he literally just stopped to pick up the Cake and the Chicken then left. So lets assume the shopping trip with Kairi and Sakuya took a couple hours before the attack happened then they investigated the salmon incident. We can say one way is 60 minutes. So the V Trains travel at roughly 10,000km an hour. He's causing some serious damage from the sonic booms created from going six times the speed of sound. ALL FOR SOME CAKE AND CHICKEN.

Estimated Timeline

830, start of school. Kid invites the Global Police.
900, Sakuya requests Tooma's help. Noel goes to get cake.
1030, decent shopping trip, last item. Chicken. Samon appears.
1100, They look for chicken, return back to Jurer empty handed. Noel shows up with cake a little after. Then goes for Chicken.
(there has to be enough time for Noel to radio ahead to France HQ, so they can procure a frozen chicken.)
1200, Noel gets the chicken.
200, Noel returns.
230, they start cooking the chicken. (This might be a little earlier. They mention other people could be cooking chicken.)
300, Samon ded
600, Christmas party

Edit: Alternatively, you can just cut the shopping trip by an hour so they cook chicken at 1:30 to make it fit better with lunch time and people possibly cooking chickens. Still fits that Noel goes back and forth within an hour. It's a late lunch. It could also be a shorter time frame... the sonic boom would kill millions on his way if he was doing this at 20,000km/h

Last edited by Kuchiri on Thu Dec 27, 2018 11:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That episode was far better than it had any right to be. Even in Super Sentai, when you go that wacky it usually backfires. But damn if it doesn't work well here.

I still feel like Sakuya isn't taken seriously enough as a character, so episodes like this don't help his cause. But for an episode like this he's definitely the right character to be instigating such a ridiculous plot.

And I too love chicken. So I'm right there with you, Sakuya. However you're still doing it all wrong, Japan. Christmas is all about the prime rib.

Oh, and does anyone know if the shop owners were famous actors or the like? I feel like the camera lingered on them just a bit too long to be regular extras, which has me thinking there's some guest casting going on...

PS What's the reason for the hiatus this time? Another sporting event?

Oh, and does anyone know if the shop owners were famous actors or the like? I feel like the camera lingered on them just a bit too long to be regular extras, which has me thinking there's some guest casting going on...

Oh, and does anyone know if the shop owners were famous actors or the like? I feel like the camera lingered on them just a bit too long to be regular extras, which has me thinking there's some guest casting going on...

No-names, the lot of them

Huh, surprising. Well then, a couple of people certainly made out like bandits in terms of getting their faces on TV. Thanks Luna!

PS What's the reason for the hiatus this time? Another sporting event?

New Year's, you fool! It's all 3-5 hour specials for the next week.

Is it my imagination, or did Sentai not used to get preempted over New Year's? I feel like we've had some (generally fillerish) episodes on New Year's week in some years. Either way, with the holiday taking place mid-week, I'm a bit surprised they'd preempt so much programming on a Sunday.